The sunset in the rosy west
Burned soft and high;
A shore-lark fell like a stone to his nest
In the waving rye.
A wind came over the garden beds
From the dreamy lawn,
The pansies nodded their purple heads,
The poppies began to yawn.
One pansy said: It is only sleep,
Only his gentle breath:
But a rose lay strewn in a snowy heap,
For the rose it was only death.
Heigho, we’ve only one life to live,
And only one death to die:
Good-morrow, new world, have you nothing to give?—
Good-bye, old world, good-bye.
THE HILL PATH
TO H.D.S.
Are the little breezes blind,
They that push me as they pass?
Do they search the tangled grass
For some path they want to find?
Take my fingers, little wind;
You are all alone, and I
Am alone too. I will guide,
You will follow; let us go
By a pathway that I know,
Leading down the steep hillside,
Past the little sharp-lipped pools,
Shrunken with the summer sun,
Where the sparrows come to drink;
And we’ll scare the little birds,
Coming on them unawares;
And the daisies every one
We will startle on the brink
Of a doze.
(Gently, gently, little wind),
Very soon a wood we’ll see,
There my lover waits for me.
(Go more gently, little wind,
You should follow soft, behind.)
You will hear my lover say
How he loves me night and day,
But his words you must not tell
To the other little winds,
For they all might come to hear,
And might rustle through the wood,
And disturb the solitude.
(Blow more softly, little wind,
You are tossing all my hair,
Go more gently, have a care;
If you lead you can’t be blind,
So,—good-bye:)
There he goes: I see his feet
On the grass;
Now the little pools are blurred
As they pass;
And he must be very fleet,
For I see the bushes stirred
Near the wood. I hope he’ll tell,
If he isn’t out of breath,
That he met me on the hill.
But I hope he will not say
That he kissed me for good-bye
Just before he flew away.
THE VOICE AND THE DUSK
The slender moon and one pale star,
A rose-leaf and a silver bee
From some god’s garden blown afar,
Go down the gold deep tranquilly.